kyloson.com
OG hacker, husband, and all 'round scallywag. Science nerd, music nerd, book nerd, general nerd. Founder of Kyloson Tech (https://kyloson.com) and proprietor of The Solo Admin blog (https://thesoloadmin.com). Holding it down in the STL.
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That acid trip part was a joke, but I have learned a valuable lesson about drinking too many RedBulls in one day before 😉
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8/I love the Grateful Dead's music bc of the output of their unique human consciousness working together to create something that never existed. I also write computer programs with random outputs. It's not the same. Imagination is as close to infinite as we can comprehend; computers just...aren't.
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7/But even if AI recorded every second of a person's life, there's still free will and imagination. Jerry saw Bill Monroe live and it inspired a lifelong love of bluegrass, but Jerry didn't SOUND like Bill Monroe, he invented his own style. AI could replicate that, but it's still not good enough.
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6/"Need" can be applied to every living thing. Single-celled organisms "need" food and water. "Want" is strictly in the realm of conscious desire, even if the definition of "conscious" is a bit fuzzy; e.g. my cats "want" love and attention. I argue that "want", "desire", and "love" *ARE* art.
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5/This is a bit far out (I hope) but should we ever replicate human consciousness in a lab somehow (God help us if we do), the entire value proposition changes. We could ASK it to write Bob Dylan songs, but it might not want to! The very word itself - WANT - has zero meaning outside self-awareness.
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4/And even if it DID, the uniqueness wouldn't be present, bc humans don't make art using an algorithm! An artist's work is imbued with every minute of lived experiences, of which AI has none. It doesn't know WHY the Dead were influenced by George Jones and Marty Robbins; they're just inputs.
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3/Or Bob Dylan's early folk albums. If that's all there was, does AI predict the turn to electric that produced "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Maggie's Farm", 2 of Dylan's best songs? The addition of electric instruments RADICALLY altered Dylan's songwriting and made him a legend. Can AI do that?
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2/For my fellow #Deadheads, take the entirety of the Dead's catalog, but remove American Beauty and the acoustic live shows. Does AI predict an album of stripped down acoustic music? Does it write FotD or "Ripple"? Doubtful, imho, because they were radically different, esp. at the time.
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2/I've seen some FANTASTIC shows from the boys in the years since, but I never got to see the *GRATEFUL DEAD*. I have no doubt others will carry the music on after Bobby's gone, but there's something magical about getting it direct from the source. 🎶🎼🎸
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1/Off topic, I don't have many regrets, but one that will always stick with me is turning down tix to see the Dead w/Jerry in '95. I wasn't a Head yet and didn't realize it would be my last chance. They weren't at their best, but they were whole. I hope others are taking the opportunity now.
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It really is the dream of every tinpot dictator with a God complex: rewriting history in one's own image. One thing the Stalins of the world never had was the ability to simultaneously erase truth as they went! AI (and humanity's Internet) in the hands of these people is the worst possible outcome.
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Haha! I know, right? I compromised with Suzanne and cut down to a couple a week, vs. one or 2 daily. Heck, two RedBulls and a veggie burrito and you're right back on Shakedown - the boundless energy, the grinding teeth and sweating; you know, an acid trip with everything except the good part. 😂
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The article doesn't say, but according to Wiki, RAH only holds about 5300 - en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_A... - and it was Bob's 1st UK show in 20 years, so I'm gonna guess probably so. 🇬🇧😉
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6/The whole experience reinforced how much we really love our neighborhood. We're not in a cookie cutter subdivision and there's no HOA. The houses are as unique as their occupants. Kudos to Brendan and Alexzia, our neighbors, and welcome to the neighborhood. 😊
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5/With Sue's dad in hospice since last month, it felt a little like kismet. At any rate, they seem to really be a GOOD couple. You guys know what I mean. You get a real sense of the dynamics between a couple in a casual setting when there's no façade. They seem like best friends, which we relate to.
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4/I flashed back to when my ex and I (at 25) moved into our 1st house and felt the same way, and I kick myself for letting a YEAR go by without welcoming them. I forget Brendan's job, but Alexzia works for DeVry U. (where I spent 2 semesters), and *volunteers* w/hospice, which says a LOT to me.
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3/We live in a neighborhood of small homes, individually built and UN-subdivision, perfect for the young ppl and families who are our neighbors. Brendan told me they'd wanted to come by but felt a little intimidated, being young in their 1st house and not sure how they'd be received.
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2/Young couple, late 20s, Brendan and Alexzia. We were enjoying our evening garage smokes, when Brendan and buddy Wade (having imbibed a few) walked up to introduce, and Alexzia came over a few minutes later. There was an immediate kinship, and Sue and I both saw shades of our younger selves.
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We can't have all those pesky "facts" just being thrown around willy nilly
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That's my assumption lol
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I was thinking the same thing! And maybe I'm biased being from the #STL and all, but I think Nelly's worth at least $75 mil. I mean, c'mon, "Country Grammar" was a banger in '99 😜
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6/In the 90s, we were quick to label as sellouts any band whose music showed up in commercials or - God forbid - political campaigns. In the shadow of these deals, our criticisms feel like some playground bullshit. Too bad nobody takes them seriously anymore.
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5/They're selling out to an industry that very LITERALLY kills people - centerjd.org/content/deat... - leaving their heirs and estates zero control over their musical legacies and how their music will be used in the future. I get it - half a $billion is a lot of money. But don't they care at all?
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4/But the perpetual revenue stream works in their favor as well. I've written thousands of words here about the horrific damage private equity has done to our economy and our world (for example - jacobin.com/2024/05/priv...), and if the artists don't know this, SURELY their lawyers do.
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3/I guess I understand it from the buyer's perspective; you own an asset that can be monetized in myriad ways, and with the 80/20 trend I posted about yesterday, streaming alone is source of perpetual revenue. What I *don't* understand is why the artists would do it. Yeah, the $$, of course.
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2/Queen, Springsteen, Dylan, Pink Floyd, MJ: the artists on this list created some of the most iconic American music of the last century. Bob Dylan won a Nobel Prize for literature ffs, and MJ, Queen, and Floyd are the 2, 4, and 8 best selling acts of all time (chartmasters.org/best-selling...).
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3/If I had to wager on the odds, I think there's a better than even chance that whatever schemes they're cooking up are MORE diabolical than I imagine and not less, but that could just be my cynical Gen X heart 😜
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2/Who is "Advance Local Media" - en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance.... Now, I could be wrong about this. Maybe these PE firms envision recouping their investments by licensing "Dancin' in the Dark" for use in Ozempic commercials, but that's gonna be a long road to breakeven.
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7/Think of it - your own personal American icon, reincarnated as a servant! It works bc it's the ultimate combo of the soullessness of unfettered capitalism and complete disregard for history, art and culture wrapped up in a single product; in other words, 100% American, baby! Where do I sign up?
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6/The next logical evolution? We can ALL be patrons of the arts, commissioning "Bob Dylan" to write a song for our anniversary or our kid's birthday party! "Hey Bob, write me a jaunty tune about my mother in law in the style of 'Rainy Day Women #12 & 35'". The possibilities are endless.
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5/It's genius. Not only could you train it on Bobby D., you could ALSO train it on Bobby D.'s influences - Woody Guthrie, Kerouac, etc. (lithub.com/on-bob-dylan...). You could even add NEW influences that Dylan never heard of, just to see what would happen - faroutmagazine.co.uk/bob-dylan-ge....
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4/Spotify has dabbled with #AI slop music and ppl don't seem to care. It's background noise. But what if you could release, say, a new Bob Dylan album, written by a model trained only to BE Bob Dylan? And bc you own the rights, everyone else is forbidden to create music trained on his catalog.
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3/Why, the souls of the musicians we cherish, of course! Here's the thing - getting dead artists into the studio to make new albums is up there in difficulty with the GnR followup or getting Journey back together. If only there was a way to create an unlimited supply of new music from an artist...
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2/PE firms with $billions of music back catalogs looking to monetize, and firms like Spotify looking to acquire content for the absolute lowest price, meet at the crossroads looking to strike a deal with the devil. Who shows up? #AI. But what could 2 soulless entities possibly use for collateral?